The Young Team

'Sharp yet tender and mischievously funny, The Young Team. pitches Armstrong straight into the first division of Scottish writers' Guardian. Round here, in the schemes of the former industrial heartland of Scotland, your troops, your young team - they're everything. Azzy Williams is fourteen. Buckfast, gang fights, a growing reputation. This is his life and he loves it. Azzy Williams is eighteen. Drugs, raves, serious violence. Things are out of control. Azzy Williams is twenty-one. Addiction, gangsters, old enemies. He dreams of leaving it all behind. But round here, a way out isn't so easy to find. 'Riveting. it crackles with teenage energy. [and] has already engendered a buzz that many other debut novelists would kill for' Herald. 'A phenomenon. one of the most admired young voices in British fiction' The Times. 'Armstrong's hard-hitting novel is Trainspotting. for a new generation' Independent.